Eastview, NY

In 1753, Joseph Paulding established a small farm at the site. His grandson, John Paulding, was one of Major John Andre's captors during the American Revolutionary War. Rumor has it the Paulding family had buried their silver on the property during the war for safety, but never recovered it.

On April 1, 1828, the County Almshouse was established and opened for business, and Isaac Coutant was installed as its first keeper. Eastview was known as Knapp's Corners.

By 1867, the village had a school, a blacksmith's shop, a Methodist church, the county almshouse, and at least a dozen homes. The New York Central Putnam Division passed through the area in 1881, crossing a perilous wooden trestle that spanned the valley. The area was then known as East Tarrytown. The trestle was dismantled two years later when the railroad was rerouted toward Tarrytown. On June 10, 1885, a post office was established.

The trestle at East Tarrytown, on the New York, Boston, & Montreal Railway, built by James McIntire & Co.

In 1893, the Paulding estate was bought by James Butler, who owned a chain of grocery stores. A commemorative plaque now marks the approximate location of the Paulding homestead. Butler named the estate "East View", and built a small race track for horses there. He built the Empire City Race Track in Yonkers, and was a major benefactor to Marymount College.

In 1895, a new reservoir was proposed to be built to supply Tarrytown with water. The Tarrytown Reservoir was completed in 1897.

The Briarcliff Trophy Race passed through Eastview on April 24, 1908 on (Old) Saw Mill River Road. News coverage of the automobile race was sent to the New York Times via Marconi Wireless Telegraph.

By 1930, the county almshouse had become an Old Folks' Home. In 1931, the Putnam Division was rerouted along the Saw Mill River valley. The cost of the relocation was paid for by millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr, whose estate the railroad had passed through. Rockefeller continued to expand his estate, buying up the remaining property in Eastview in 1934. By 1950, nearly the entire town had been obliterated, with the exception of the Butler estate and Old Folks' Home. The Butler estate was probably torn down in the 1960s when Union Carbide began building their office park. In 1963, 23 miles of railroad track north of Eastview on the Putnam Division was abandoned and removed. By 1968, the Eastview railroad station was gone.

Eastview is located along the Saw Mill River Parkway in Westchester County, New York. A Con Edison substation, and a corporate office park known as "The Landmark" (the former Union Carbide building, a/k/a The Spine Building) are pretty much the only things there these days.

Eastview Abandoned

Time Magazine, April 1, 1929:

John D. Rockefeller Jr. last week wiped the village of Eastview off the map of New York, by outright purchase of that once flourishing Colonial hamlet on the outskirts of Tarrytown. Mr. Rockefeller paid more than $700,000 for the privilege of ousting 46 families, so that the new main line of the Putnam division of the New York Central R.R. may run along what was once Eastview's main street, instead of through the Rockefeller estate, "Pocantico Hills." At the same time he rid his vicinity of a mushroom congerie of dance halls, picnic groves, gas stations. The village, including houses built when Peter Stuyvesant peg-legged it along the leafy Bouwerie, is to be razed by May 1. The only Eastview buildings to be spared in Rockefeller Land are: "Low-erre," summer home of Chainstorekeeper James Butler; the Westchester County poorhouse; the Tarrytown pumping station.